


Moonlit Seas

by SerendipitousMountains



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: ? - Freeform, Established Relationship, First work on ao3 guys hope its a good one, Gen, Graphic violence tag just to play it safe, Inspired by a fic I read once but can't remember the name of, M/M, Maybe - Freeform, Moon, Mutual Pining, Oh also Merlin has wings, Soul Bond, TW: burning, TW: possibly inaccurate descriptions of mental hospitals and mental health issues, To be honest I wrote this half asleep, i dunno man
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-02
Updated: 2019-11-02
Packaged: 2021-01-16 21:20:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21277895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SerendipitousMountains/pseuds/SerendipitousMountains
Summary: His moon, soft and pale against the ink black sky, hands rough with callouses but warm against his cheek, the way his smile seems to shine brighter than any star. His moon, who has always been there since before he can remember, the one thing that has never faltered, never fallen short. His moon, who despite everything they’ve been through together, he cannot truly name, the identity lost to years of bitter pain and the insanity, the illness creeping slowly into his head until there is nothing left of him.His moon, who is always there, just out of reach.His moon, who he can never touch again.





	Moonlit Seas

**Author's Note:**

> Fair Warning: I wrote this half asleep so if there are any inaccuracies, let me know. TW for burning, bad parental figures, and inaccurate descriptions of mental hospitals and mental health issues. 
> 
> Please be kind, I'm new to ao3 and the Merlin fandom as a whole.

Arthur watches the light beam listlessly from his window, body uncoordinated and loose, sprawled against the soft, white covers of the care room. The passage of time means very little to him, days and nights receding into each other in a way that indicates no meaning to his well-being. He only cares about the stars, bright and glorious, shining against an ink-black sky, surrounding the object of his deepest affections. 

He doesn’t know why the moon elicits such a response from him; it is merely a celestial object, no different from the sun or the other planets one can see at this time of night. But there is something about staring at the pale, cratered surface, its ethereal and infinite glow, the way its light softly plays against the sky and shines in mottled patterns against the splay of his fingers against the window pane, that helps quiet and soothe the constant warfare of his mind. 

Arthur lives a life in battle, a twisted game where his mind is his greatest enemy, where reality’s only surefire rule is the way it can come crashing down around him at a moment’s notice; but despite this, the moon was and always will remain the one constant in the chaos of insanity.

It is a night much like any other; a day of hazy, incongruent flashes where he is somewhat aware of himself, reality slipping around him from the white of the care facilities’ walls to the soft crimson of a time long passed, where the sky was clear and bright and there’s the press of a gold circlet on his brow. Arthur faintly remembers being poked and prodded, sitting on an uncomfortable and lumpy couch as a woman with curly hair and a sweet, open face asks him gentle but probing questions. The encounter is new, but the way that his mind seems unable to decide whether the kind therapist wears a soft white coat or a long, embroidered dress certainly isn’t. Questions are hazy and half-remembered; answers are short and confusing, as he feels he is answering multiple at once from across all of history, and all he can think of is the warm and comforting presence of the moon. 

His moon, soft and pale against the ink black sky, hands rough with callouses but warm against his cheek, the way his smile seems to shine brighter than any star. His moon, who has always been there since before he can remember, the one thing that has never faltered, never fallen short. His moon, who despite everything they’ve been through together, he cannot truly name, the identity lost to years of bitter pain and the insanity, the illness creeping slowly into his head until there is nothing left of him. 

His moon, who is always there, just out of reach.

His moon, who he can never touch again.   
___ 

“What do you remember?” The woman asks, soft curls waving slightly in the gentle breeze emanating from the heater. The office is warm and cozy in the winter, piled with books and essays stacked in organized piles on the shelves and storage compartments, papers clipped and labelled with colourful sticky notes. She’s wearing a white coat again, soft and snowy looking, a contrast to her dark skin, beautiful and flushed from the cold air outside. Arthur admires her for a minute, enough to remember. He knows that once she was very important to him, that he loved her, deeply and truly. He blinks, and the white coat is now a deep red, much like the mulled wine he remembers drinking during the bright and glorious feasts, richly embroidered with gold and precious jewels, swirling around her hips and bringing out the beautiful brown of her eyes. Her hair, pinned up elaborately by nimble, hardworking fingers, hands soft and pliant when held in his own. The ring that once matched, glinting off of the sunset light as they sit down at the head of the table. 

Arthur blinks again, and the woman is staring at him, lips pursed concernedly. “Mr. DuBois?” She asks, almost hesitantly. 

“I don’t-” he starts, but he feels as though he is split, like the woman is two completely different people, and the colours seem to swirl and bleed, overtaking the feeble comprehension of his mind and spiralling down and out of sight. 

“I don’t understand,” he mumbles, before his eyes roll into the back of his head and the world goes dark. 

_____ 

He dreams of fire, bright and all encompassing, hungrily consuming the planks of the floors, dancing across the tables and chairs and the large beams above. Arthur shivers, curled up into himself in the corner, flames hot and bright and engulfing him, licking the edges of his trousers and scarring the flesh of his ankles. 

There’s a family across from him, tied to a beam in the center of the room, with thick rope tied too tightly and rough fabric preventing the screaming from escaping. Their scorched, soot streaked faces disturbed only by the long tracts of tears, watch him with a horrified reverence. There’s one, a little girl, hair black and twisted in greasy curls, grey eyes wide and horrified as they bore into his soul. 

Arthur could do it; he could crawl over, across the path of the floor untouched by flames, over to the pole. He could undo the gnarled and twisted knots of the rope and set the family free, let them leave, let them live- 

But his father is across the room, and the hungry, ever consuming fire dances in his eyes. They earned it, Arthur, he seems to communicate. This is our retribution. 

So he sits, shivering, and watches with dead eyes as the pyre begins to burn. 

____

“What do you remember?” The woman tries again, clicking her pen almost nervously. He’s just woken up again, haziness clearing with the press of one of the doctors on call at the facility as they confirm he is, in fact, very much alive. The room is still small, and cluttered, and he still cannot decide if the woman is red or white or both. 

Arthur stares up at the ceiling, head spinning. The woman purses her lips. 

The hardest part isn’t remembering too little, he thinks almost sardonically back at her. It’s remembering too much. 

____ 

He is lost, staring up at the sky as the ground below seems to melt away, and Arthur feels oddly breathless when facing the sight above. The moon is beautiful, he thinks, and there is something in the way that it seems to simply glow instead of shine that provides a pleasing countenance to the paleness. 

But there is no blue. He remembers blue, and even though Arthur reasons that the moon could not have water, he knows somewhere that the pale glow cannot be all there is. Blue, like the sea after a storm, grey and yellow and green flecked across the iris, splattered around the pupil and full of unadulterated admiration, a gaze even and so trusting. A gaze he always felt he did not deserve. 

The moon does not look at him now, and he wonders why that makes him feel as though the world has just fallen around him. 

___ 

“We’re going to try a different tactic today, Mr. DuBois,” the woman says pointedly, and he can tell from the dark circles under her eyes and the way her finger absent-mindedly clicks the pen, that she has lost as much sleep over these sessions as he has. Maybe for different reasons, he thinks. Because surely she would not be looking at the moon. 

“Nod if you can hear me, please.” 

Arthur nods. The woman sighs heavily. 

“Okay, good.” She marks off something on her paper, something relieved in her tone. “Now, can you look to the left and tell me what you see?” 

He flicks his gaze over to the side, where there are books piled high on a stained and worn-looking table, hobbled over where one leg is shorter than the rest. It’s been well used, well loved, old and tired but still as loyal as the day it was made. The thought warms him somewhere deep down, as that sort of unabashed devotion to a cause or a person is something rarely found and reverently gained. It’s comfortable, somewhere, and his mind is a little more settled than it’s been in a while. 

“Loyalty,” he mutters to himself. “Moon-” 

But that makes no sense. It’s only the afternoon, and there are no windows in the woman’s room. He can feel it though, pressing against his chest, and he almost collapses off of the couch stopping himself from running outside, just to check, just to see- 

“Moon,” he whispers, staring up at the ceiling. The woman nervously clicks her pen.

____ 

The moon is full, cradled against the stars and shining fully and gloriously onto the world below. Arthur presses both hands against the window, eyes wide, and waits. 

He doesn’t remember what he’s waiting for. 

___

They catch his father on the 23rd. He’s sitting in his office, papers splayed across the rich, polished mahogany of his office desk, flicking his gaze across pictures of men and women and children suspected of being tainted, impure, and fire shines, overbright, in the irises and pupils and humming under his skin and in his veins and somewhere deep down where it’s long been rotted and spoiled. That’s when the cops kick down the door and storm the house, guns cocked and loaded, the van running right outside as they lead Uther DuBois-Penn away in handcuffs. 

The Great Purge, they say sarcastically. Kept saying it was vengeance for something or other. Bloke’s obviously off the deep end. 

The police find Arthur in the library, surrounded by half scribbled pictures of fire and swords and crimson red capes, faces of people he’s loved and lost and burned, staring up at the skylight where the moon hangs heavy and almost despondent. They watch the way he shivers and curls in on himself, jerks and twitches and shakes with the effort of keeping everything in, as though if he stands up straight all the memories will fall right out and there will be nothing left of him anymore. 

He’s carted off to the care facility before dawn. 

____

There is no moon tonight, no matter how hard he strains his gaze, worriedly flicking across the expanse of what he can see from his spot by the window. The ink-stained canvas is dark and empty, the object of his affections hidden from his sight, and no matter how hard he presses his fingers into the glass he cannot find it. 

But he needs it, Arthur needs it, needs to know that it is okay, that it will be protected and safe and alive- 

“Arthur,” someone whispers. He does not respond. The moon is still gone, and Arthur remembers enough to know that nothing the world can give could be as important as that. 

There’s a gentle touch to his shoulder, soft and almost hesitant, and he flinches slightly. But he cannot move, cannot force his gaze away from the sky, cannot look down to the ground below. 

“What’s wrong?” The presence steps closer, feet making no noise against the soft carpet of the room, hand moving to cradle the side of his head. It’s warm and safe, and Arthur nearly melts into it as it nestles its way into his hair. He keeps his gaze above. 

“It’s gone.” 

The presence flickers, stepping closer. “What is?” 

“The moon.” Arthur cannot prevent the crack in his voice, the overwhelming sense of loss that accompanies the simple sentence, because his heart seems to be torn to pieces, as though half of him is missing. Like he is only half of what he should be. His head feels like it’s splitting in two.

The hand cradles his neck, and another loops its way around his waist, gentle and warm. Arthur knows this presence cannot be that of a nurse, as none would ever be so bold or so stupid as to touch him unless absolutely necessary. If it were anyone else, regardless, he would kick and thrash and bite. But this touch is familiar, safe, warm; it’s akin to the warmth of a fire during the cold winter months, of rich wine sliding down his throat, of the kindness and familiarity of home after months and months of being adrift at sea. 

“It’s okay,” the presence tightens its grip. “It’s not gone. Just somewhere else.” 

And the voice is so familiar, the lilt to the vowels, the soft stumbling over the consonants. The cadence, deep and smooth, reverberating through his ear. Arthur finally looks down, over his shoulder, and feels his heart stop. 

The moon is there, and more alive than it has ever been before, in all the times he’s pressed his palms against the glass and yearned. Dark hair, longer than he remembers, curled up against the sides of his face and reflecting the pale light of the light in the back of the room. Skin pale and warm, glowing. And blue, he thinks ludicrously, yellow flecked against the iris, and the gaze is steady and trusting and so full of love that he can’t breathe. He’s dressed in a simple tunic, red and threadbare, neck pale and exposed, laces loose and limp against the collarbone. And gods above, the ears, how could he have forgotten about the ears? 

“It’s you,” Arthur exhales heavily. His hand is shaky and cold from being pressed against the freezing glass, but he can’t stop himself from gently, almost reverently setting it against the side of his face, stroking the hard bone in his cheek. He’s about to burst, overflowing with emotions, and the area around him is blurring dangerously but he doesn’t care, because the moon wasn’t gone at all. It’s right here, in front of him, no matter what the world looks like beyond. His constant, his better, the other half he’s been missing. 

“It’s you.” His head is splitting in two, everything becoming too much. The moon makes soft, concerned noises, thumbs pressing under his eyes, and Arthur is vaguely aware of the liquid trailing down them, burning hot against his cheeks as he wipes them away. It’s too much, too much, he wants to say. Make it stop, please, I can’t take it anymore. 

The moon seems to hear his plea, somehow, and he presses closer, until Arthur’s head is nestled into his shoulder. He watches as something unfurls from the other’s back, dark and leathery, blocking out the changing world until he’s firmly ensconced in a warm, safe cocoon. 

The wings, he remembers. The moon has wings, long and pointed, leathery and soft, unfurled to protect. To protect him. 

He’s crying now, emotions bubbling over, and the world is swimming, cycling through weather and ages, sounds and sights, and everything seems to be spiralling around him again, even the moon’s steadfast presence beginning to slip away. But Arthur can’t, he can’t let go, because if he does then he’ll wake up in that cold, dark place surrounded by fire, the red-hot flames licking at the shelves and the walls and the ceiling, his father watching from the epicenter as the hatred consumes them both. And he won’t let it happen again, not when he’s just got him back, got- 

“Gods, Arthur,” the moon whispers brokenly, “what did he do to you?” 

I don’t know, Arthur thinks hysterically. I don’t know. 

He’s pulled closer, wings curled tighter, and they’re both shaking and breathing heavily, overcome with emotion, and Arthur wraps his arms around the torso and squeezes tighter, like his life depends on it, crushing his face into his shoulder and hoping that he has the strength to never let go. 

He doesn’t know how much time passes, only aware of the soft ministrations against his head where the moon’s hands play with his hair, and the world has narrowed only to the small pinprick of space between the wings where everything else has seemed to melt away, and he feels safer and more protected than he’s felt in a long, long time. The memories are beginning to settle, something that has never happened before. The world seems more distinct, reality beginning to strengthen and glue itself over, and even in the hazy, incomprehensible mess of fact and fiction, reality and memory, the time he spent with the man in his arms seems to slam back into his skull, the shockwaves jolting him in his arms as he suddenly leans back. 

“Merlin,” he breathes out, eyes wide and searching. “Merlin.” 

The moon smiles brokenly, subtle and saddened and blindingly happy all at once. “Arthur,” he responds. 

And the world seems to settle back into itself. 

____ 

When the sun dapples itself across his eyelids, the heat settling into his bones, Arthur knows he will wake up alone. There is an absence next to him, cold as the presence faded from his realm. He stretches, eyes bleary at this time of morning, fixedly gazing against the wall as he begins to wake. 

There’s a thrumming in his chest, and Arthur realizes that he no longer feels the hollow emptiness, the spiralling pain in his head. No, now there is only a feeling of security in his heart. 

He remembers truly now, the two lives he lived: Arthur DuBois, the man who watched his father murder dozens, burning families on makeshift pyres in an effort to reignite the Great Purge, the brokenness of his mind as he was carted away to the mental wards to deal with the trauma. And Arthur Pendragon, the King of Camelot, who fought in the Battle of Camlann and died on the shores of Lake Avalon, taken away by the Sidhe and promised to return when the world needed him most. 

And he knows Merlin, his moon, his everything, who is out there in the world. Waiting. But no longer out of reach. 

And for the first time in a thousand long, bitter, unyielding years, Arthur feels himself smiling.

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave a comment if you liked the story :D


End file.
